Women on the Verge

Cathy Young from the April 1998 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Challenging feminists on the subject of sex, Graglia goes far beyond arguing that promiscuity robs sex of meaning, or even that sexual freedom robs women of the "bargaining power" to withhold sex until men agree to marriage. For her, nothing less will do than to restore a view of female sexuality as essentially submissive: The path to bliss is to be "compliant" to the husband's desires but to refrain from initiating sex. Proving that conservatives are not immune to the disease of gratuitous exhibitionism, Graglia occasionally bursts into Naomi Wolf-like rhapsodies about the "sexual ministrations" of her husband, to whom she refers at one point as her very own "Siegfried." She finds deep truths in Andrea Dworkin's description of sexual intercourse as an act in which the woman is dominated and her independent self is wiped out--if only Dworkin would understand that it's a good thing.

Filled with hyperbole to rival the rhetoric of the most radical feminists (The Feminine Mystique is compared to Mein Kampf; abortion is "at least as great a violation of women's bodies as rape"; sexually active unmarried women are in a state of "sexual servitude"), Domestic Tranquility is also exceptionally mean-spirited. Despite Graglia's pious assertion that she bears nontraditional women no ill will, she more than once refers to them as "male clones" and compares their marriages to the cohabitation of homosexual couples--which, in this context, is definitely not a compliment. And her portrait of frazzled, unsexed, Prozac-popping modern career women is certainly no less vicious than any feminist caricature of the traditional woman.

This tome, which can be kindly described as eccentric, may not seem worth discussing--except for the glowing blurbs from William Kristol ("stunningly bold and deep") and Danielle Crittenden of The Women's Quarterly, who praises Graglia as "a courageous thinker." Well, I suppose it does take courage to argue that it's not good for women to think too much, or to suggest that female genital mutilation is just a slightly too "draconian" way to achieve the worthy goal of curbing female sexual assertiveness and affirming male mastery in sex.

A few years ago, when Christina Sommers published Who Stole Feminism?, one reviewer snidely wrote that Sommers was "the sort of woman the political right can completely uphold," since "her feminism consists in celebrating what women have achieved, and all the wonderful men who made it possible." Could it be that the right would much rather uphold a woman who views everything women have achieved as a social catastrophe, and the men who made it possible as pathetic wimps? So much the worse for conservatives: A mass exodus of women from the work force is about as likely as a massive upsurge in support for feminist political activism--and Carolyn Graglia-style anti-feminism is about as relevant to the lives of most women as is Deborah Rhode-style feminism.